Title: Song of the Navigator
Series: N/A
Author: Astrid Amara
Genre: Sci Fi/Fantasy
Length: Novel (224 pages)
Publisher: Samhain Publishing, Ltd. (May 26th, 2015)
Heat Level: Explicit
Heart Rating: ♥♥♥♥4Hearts
Blurb: Worst Possible Birthday: Being sold into slavery by none other than your lover.
Tover Duke’s rare ability to move anything instantly across light-years of space makes him a powerful, valuable asset to the Harmony Corporation, and a rock star among the people of the colonies. His life is luxurious. Safe. Routine.
He has his pick of casual hookups passing through Dadelus-Kaku Station. His one brush with danger of any kind—the only bright spot in his otherwise boring life—is Cruz Arcadio, a dark-haired, hard-bodied engineer whose physical prowess hints he’s something much more.
When a terrorist abducts Tover, hurling him into a world of torture, exploitation and betrayal, it’s with shattering disbelief that he realizes his kidnapper is none other than Cruz. As Tover struggles to find the courage to escape his bondage, he begins to understand the only way to free his body, his mind—and his heart—is to trust the one man who showed him that everything about his once-perfect life was a lie.
Warning: This story contains descriptions of extreme violence and assault. It also contains graphic sexual depictions. It also has a lot of birds. And pirate movies from the future. And romance.
ISBN: 9781619228627
Product Link: https://www.samhainpublishing.com/book/5444/song-of-the-navigator
Reviewer: Zane
Review: Kidnapped on your birthday? By your lover? Well, this started off with quite the bang! Sci-Fi is not a ‘go-to’ for me, so I was thrilled to find that the world building though complex wasn’t confusing. Astrid Amara has shown such attention to detail, building a future-fantasy world so layered, so rich that the words painted vivid pictures in my mind.
The characters were fleshed out just as deeply. Tover, the ‘rock star’ navigator, living the life of luxury, naïve and/or in denial of the injustices of the world around him. We are with Tover from his initial abduction throughout his torturous captivity, witnessing his rescue, escape and freedom.
Who are the allies? The enemies? Are they one and the same? Cruz, Tover’s some-time lover, the engineer, aide to the terrorists that kidnapped him? Terrorist himself? Is he this horrible traitor, or is he really just misunderstood? Not everything is what it seems.
There is a definite darkness to this story as indicated in the blurb. There is indeed violence and torture (no rape/noncom) which though not easy to read, was completely in line with the book and subject matter, including PTSD suffered by Tover. Shining through those tough times were moments of romance and heroism, of happiness and self-discovery.
Being a romantic sap, it was not lost on me that the place Tover truly found himself, the home of Cruz and his family, was called Carida, which sounds quite like ‘querida’, an endearment of love and caring in Spanish/Portuguese. The descriptive beauty, the events and dialogue that took place in Carida are some of my favorite in this book.
Ms. Amara has penned an epic journey of loss and love, where the hero does save the day (more than once) and love does win out. Though not the usual sweet and humorous read I have come to expect from this author, this latest release has only reaffirmed why Astrid Amara is an auto-buy for me, and why I can easily recommend this to one and all.
* I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review through http://mmgoodbookreviews.wordpress.com *